Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: News

A sign for the RecycleMania competition displays interesting recycling facts and encourages the Penn community to increase its recycling. [Click to enlarge]

Last Monday, Penn reached its single largest day of commingled recycling collection during the RecycleMania competition with 3,480 pounds of recycled material - or 1.74 tons.

RecycleMania, a 10-week contest sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, designed to promote waste reduction, began on Jan. 27. Currently, Penn is ranked 91st out of 400 colleges and universities participating in the competition.

According to the RecycleMania web site, Penn has seen improvement in all four categories during the last three weeks:

n The percentages for the Grand Champion competition, which measures the weekly recycling rate, increased from 14.6 percent in week one to 18.34 percent in week three.

n In the Per Capita Classic, which measures pounds recycled per person, Penn's totals increased from 1.18 pounds to 1.38 pounds from weeks one to three.

n In the measurement of waste minimization, Penn reduced the pounds of waste per person from 8.06 pounds in week one to 7.51 pounds in week two.

n The total gross tonnage of materials recycled during the competition, measured in the Gorilla Prize category, showed that Penn's total recycling has reached 55,930 pounds by the third week of the competition.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools